Mexico City: Miracles, Mysteries, and Laughing Skeletons

Mexico City pulsates with the throbbing energy of a modern megalopolis. Yet at the same time, it is home to numerous ancient sites of miracles and mysteries.

The Miracle at Tepeyac Hill

For most of us Filipinos, a trip to Mexico would not be complete without a visit to the sacred Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The olive-skinned Lady of Guadalupe is the city’s Patron Saint. It is also the Secondary Patroness of the Philippines. 

Basilica Complex. New Basilica on the left, Old Basilica, center.

The Basilica Complex sits atop Tepeyac Hill in the city’s La Villa District, and is the most visited Catholic shrine in the world.

As the now- familiar story goes, the Blessed Mother appeared to the native peasant Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill in 1531 and instructed him to tell the Bishop to build a church in her name. The Bishop was skeptical. Then one day, Juan Diego brought him unseasonal Castillian roses that were not even native to Mexico. Juan Diego carried the roses in his apron-like cloak called a Tilma. When he spread it out, the Bishop saw the miraculously imprinted image of the Blessed Mother on the Tilma, olive skinned and radiant, just as Juan Diego had described her. The Bishop relented and ordered the construction of a chapel, the Capilla del Cerrito, on the apparition site. Numerous healings have been credited to the Tilma.

I went to the Basilica Complex at midday, and although it teemed with people, I felt a certain spiritual serenity there. Aside from the Capilla del Cerrito, the Complex contains two basilicas, a visitor’s center, and a garden. The original Basilica which dates back to the 16^th Century is now a museum of religious art, notably paintings of Marian miracles. 

Religious painting inside the Old Basilica

I heard mass at the stadium-like Basilica Nuevo which was built between 1974 and 1976 to accommodate a growing congregation. There, Juan Diego’s indestructible Tilma hung above the altar for everybody in the circular church to see. I am not a particularly religious person, but I felt a soothing calm as I gazed at the image of the Blessed Mother.  Even the oppressive afternoon heat was not bothersome anymore.

View of Tilma from walkalator

For a closer look, I went down one of the ramps on either side of the altar to the viewing area. A pair of walkalators like the ones in airports transported visitors, preventing bottlenecks in front of the relic. Like other visitors, I cued up several times to go back and forth, somewhat addicted to gazing up the miraculous tilma. It is now enclosed in bullet-proof glass, after a bomb attack in 1920. Prior to that, it was exposed to the elements for a long time. What a marvel that it remained well preserved even after almost 500 year.

A framed replica of the Tilma stands at the door of a religious articles store located near the walkalators, where visitors like me pose for pictures. After every mass, a priest blesses religious items right outside the Basilica Nuevo.

Priest Blessing religious items

The Mystery of Teotihuacan

Some 40 kilometers northeast of Mexico City lies the abandoned city of Teotihuacan, a UNESCO Heritage Site with a history shrouded in mystery. It was established around 100 BC and was the largest city in Pre Columbian Americas. But then it suddenly and violently collapsed for reasons that remain enigmatic. Even the identity of the builders is still under debate.

Pyramid of the Sun

The Aztecs who arrived in Mexico in the 13^th Century long after Teotihuacan’s collapse, perhaps struck by its grandeur, believed it to be the site where the gods created the universe. So, they called the city the Birthplace of the Gods ("Teotihuacan" in their native language).

The Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon loom large over the ruins of Teotihuacan. The Pyramid of the Sun measures 210 feet high, as tall as the 55-storey One Rockwell West Tower. Shorter but no less impressive, the Pyramid of the Moon stands at 150 feet, roughly as tall as a 45-storey building. I was awed by the skill of the ancient builders. How could those ancient craftsmen have constructed those humongous monuments hundreds of years before the invention of modern tools? We asked our guide if perhaps there were extra terrestials who helped. She gave us an enigmatic smile in reply.

Unlike Egyptian Pyramids with pointed tops, the pyramids of Teotihuacan have flat tops. Our guide said that the ancient inhabitants performed human sacrifice there. Recent excavations found evidence of such rituals.

An actual archeological dig at Teotihuacan.

Spanning the city is the Calzada delos Muertos (Avenue of the Dead), so called because of the tomb-like mounds lining both sides. On the afternoon of our visit, the sun soaked the avenue with a reddish tinge.  Our guide told us that people who were offered as human sacrifice walked that path on the way to their deaths. Even in the warm air, the hair on my arms prickled.

Avenue of the Dead: is the red tinge from ancient blood?

Laughing Skeletons

All around the city, I saw bejeweled, merry-making skeletons. I was not hallucinating. These stylized skeletons called La Calavera Catrina (the Elegant Skull) are displayed all year-round, some dressed in gowns and suits embellished with bursts of aqua, fuschia, and green.

Skeletons displayed all year round

Catrina Dolls form part of the collection of the Museum of Popular Arts. They smile from vignettes such as a wedding party, a singing trio, and a cavalry. Even in the Plaza San Jacinto, an art district south of the City, those dolls were everywhere.

How do you beat a cavalry of skeletons?

My Mexican friend told me that during the day of the Dead (November 1-2), the dolls really come out in full force, appearing not only in shop windows but also in private altars. Sugar candies and cakes  shaped like skulls and skeletons are handed out to children during the Holiday. Larger-than-life Catrinas dominate Day of the Dead Parades.

The Holiday is a joyous one, held to celebrate family members who have passed away. In homes, they erect shrines with offerings of gifts and favorite food of the departed, not to appease them, but to lure them to visit!

The Mayan Calendar and Others

Other interesting places abound in the City. Foremost is the famed National Museum of Anthropology with its wide collection of artifacts notably the Mayan Calendar, which has lost none of its grandeur despite some miscalculations regarding the end of the world. Perhaps the error lay in modern man’s interpretation of the calendar.

Local Artists sell their work in Plaza San Jacinto at the  San Angelo District south of the city

The Zona Rosa boasts of shops and bars, including gay bars. It ends at the Monument to Independence, known for the statue of the winged Goddess of Liberty. The San Angelo district where the air is suffused with the scent of corn tortillas and the beat of marimba, is a pleasant place to dine and shop in the old countryside way.

Street Music- Dying art of the organ grinder

Indeed, Mexico is more than just drug cartels, sunswept beaches and Marimar.  Hasta luego, Mexico!

Note: This article was published in the Lifestyle Section of the Business Mirror, March 7, 2013.